UNLV archivists entrusted with Harrah’s documents

Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2003 | 11:17 a.m.

Deep in the special collections department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas lies a photo showing the seedy gambling halls and bingo parlors that lined the streets of downtown Reno, then the state's gambling capital, in the 1930s.

Another photo dating from 1938 shows the tall, lanky young man who would change all that.

William Fisk Harrah, a pioneer of the modern gambling industry in the United States, is a man whose past is inextricably linked with Nevada history.

Much of that past -- documented in photos, architectural renderings, press releases and promotional materials from the 1930s to his death in 1978 and beyond -- was recently donated by Harrah's Entertainment Inc. to UNLV.

Over the past six months, the university's special collections department has archived thousands of documents as well as hundreds of company tokens such as glassware, poker chips, cards, promotional posters and even boxing gloves.

The donation marks the single largest gift of historic material from a gaming company nationwide and is also one of the largest ever received by the university -- which already has the most extensive collection of casino promotional materials and other memorabilia in the country.

"The history of this company is very valuable," said Peter Michel, director of special collections at UNLV. "It's the history of the business they are in."

The collection is likely worth "in the millions of dollars" based on comparable prices for casino memorabilia, Michel said.

Several displays have been set up in the university's Lied Library in advance of a reception that will be held Thursday evening to announce the gift.

The origin of the donation began about a year ago, when David Schwartz, coordinator of the Gaming Studies Research Center at UNLV, made a pitch for the company to donate any documents of interest to the university.

"It's kind of a standard pitch I make to all the casinos," Schwartz said. "They were very willing to work with us."

In a city and industry where buildings and concepts change to meet seasonal trends, companies often discard promotional materials that -- unlike financial or legal documents -- are considered non-strategic assets.

Schwartz said he hopes the Harrah's archives will change that by leading more companies to donate materials to UNLV. There's some evidence that it may be working: MGM MIRAGE has said it will also donate archived materials, while UNLV is in discussions with Trump Hotels directors to donate company documents, Schwartz said.

Harrah's, which has a conscious sense of its past and its place in the gaming industry, is different from the pack, Michel said.

"William F. Harrah is very much a part of their brand," he said. "He's a rags to riches story. It's a story they're very much proud of, as they should be."

Then-President and Chief Executive Phil Satre began a push to organize company memorabilia around 1986 in preparation for the company's 50th anniversary the following year, which featured a giant mobile exhibit of the company's history.

"It was a big deal to me ... that we should document the archives of the company in a cohesive way," said Satre, now chairman of Harrah's.

"What sustains a company over a long period of time is a connection to its roots, as well as a willingness to change," he said. "Rooted in that (past) is a foundation of values. What Bill Harrah did in those 40-plus years was instill those values in the company in terms of how you treat the employees, how you treat the customers, values in quality, honesty and integrity."

Some of Satre's most treasured documents are past issues of "Harrah-scope," a company newsletter that included comments from Harrah about his employees, company and industry.

Perhaps of more interest to historians are renderings of Harrah's earliest properties and photos of his father, John Harrah, a bingo operator in Venice, Calif. Like many of Nevada's early operators, the elder Harrah moved to the new gambling frontier when California became inhospitable to gaming.

A series of photos document the startling transformation from the small, smart-looking Harrah's Heart Tango bingo parlor in 1938 to the 1969 opening of the sprawling, 24-story Harrah's Reno in 1969.

"He was adept at finding the right location and grew through continually expanding his properties," Michel said. He was also a straight-laced businessman who advocated strict regulation and gaming as mainstream American commerce. In that sense, "Harrah's is a microcosm of the gaming industry in the U.S.," Michel said.

Promotional materials give some early insight into the marketing wisdom of Harrah's. An ad, for example, touts the "Sensational Air Curtain" at Harrah's Club. The predecessor to Harrah's Reno opened in 1957 with a new concept in air flow control that allowed the casino to open into the street.

Other promotions from those years show attempts to draw customers to Harrah's Club through a jovial sultan icon.

"I hit the jackpot at Harrah's Club Reno," reads one ad, which features a cartoon drawing of the sultan surrounded by beautiful women. The sultan icon was later ditched for a more upscale look better suited to its conservative founder, Michel said.

The image of a smiling Harrah in a dark pressed suit and wire-rimmed glasses is ubiquitous, featured on everything from early annual reports to group photos with the headliners he was known to attract in Northern Nevada's heyday. On display is a photo with Harrah and a young Bill Cosby sharing a joke on a boat in Lake Tahoe. Nearby is a signed photo from Marlene Dietrich, circa 1961.

More curious items in the archives include a collection of antique playing cards and gambling games as well as hood ornaments from some long-gone luxury cars -- the last remnants of Harrah's 1,000-plus historic collection of antique cars.

In another case sits evidence of Harrah's unrequited dream -- a 1970s-era rendering of a fantasy-like megaresort called "Autoworld." The resort, featuring a huge dome filled with boats, planes, a spaceship and floating hot air balloon, was never built and remains a strange testament to Harrah's creative side.

The vast majority of what Bill Harrah owned was in the company's name. That left a large, unwieldy collection of personal items upon Harrah's death in 1978, including the cars and a house in Lake Tahoe that were eventually sold.

Harrah took his company public in 1971 but owned about 87 percent of stock until his death, when it passed to the Holiday Inn company. Since then, Harrah's heirs have had little to do with the company or its archives, Satre said.

"This collection is much better suited to a library than just company records," he said. "They'll do an even better job (of archiving), I'm sure."